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Companies to Be Removed From Contractor Blacklist

The oil ministry has reviewed the list of companies banned from signing oil contracts and a number of them have been delisted, Mizan news agency quoted deputy oil minister, Emad Hosseini, as saying on Saturday.

"There are currently 500 companies on the blacklist," he stated, adding that some of the delisted firms will be given the go-ahead to negotiate and sign oil and gas contracts.

The oil ministry has asked the blacklisted companies to provide their documents if they intend to be removed from the list, which "remained unreviewed for years," Hosseini told reporters, adding that the blacklist was compiled during the two-term presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "Our reassessment is now at its final stage, and licenses will soon be reissued for those companies whose duration of ban has expired," he said.

These firms, which are mostly the oil ministry subsidiaries, will be automatically added to the list of oil industry contractors.

Asked about the length of the evaluation process, Hosseini stated that the oil ministry's engineering division plans to continue reviewing the bans on contract signing for a certain group of companies, adding that "a considerable number of firms are expected to enter next year's energy project as contractors."